{"id":243611,"date":"2010-06-25T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2010-06-25T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sdnews.com\/local-artist-bags-recognition-for-lunch-bag-artwork-blog\/"},"modified":"2010-06-25T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2010-06-25T07:00:00","slug":"local-artist-bags-recognition-for-lunch-bag-artwork-blog","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/local-artist-bags-recognition-for-lunch-bag-artwork-blog\/","title":{"rendered":"Local artist bags recognition for lunch-bag artwork blog"},"content":{"rendered":"

Por Meiko Patton
\nReportero SDUN
\n<\/strong>
\n

\"Local<\/a>
Derek Benson draws a new image on his three children\u2019s lunch bags every day. (Courtesy Derek Benson)<\/figcaption><\/figure>Mission Hills resident Derek Benson has been chosen as one of 20 members of the 2010 Sharpie Squad.<\/p>\n

The squad\u2019s artists and bloggers are a group of passionate Sharpie marker users who serve as vocal brand ambassadors, sharing their enthusiasm, creativity and unbridled passion for Sharpie products.<\/p>\n

A Namco Games employee by day, Benson creates art for video games. But away from gaming he is known for his lunch bag art, consisting of intricate drawings of cartoons and super heroes, which he showcases on his blog, lunchbagart.tumblr.com.<\/p>\n

Benson has been using Sharpie markers all his life, he said. The father of three children ages 9, 5 and 3, Benson began drawing art on their lunch bags every day as they went to school, eventually adding 370 entries to lunchbagart.com. <\/p>\n

\u201cI do this mostly as a hobby for my kids,\u201d Benson said. \u201cThey really have the final say in what goes up on the blog, I definitely take constructive criticism from them.<\/p>\n

\"Local<\/a>
Lunchbagart.com contains more than 370 pictures of Benson\u2019s artwork, which earned him a spot on the Sharpie Squad. (Courtesy Derek Benson)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\u201cI like to draw things that are weird and what I feel is cool. Right now, if you check out my blog, you\u2019ll see I\u2019m drawing things from this cool comic line called Dreamland Chronicles.\u201d<\/p>\n

Benson is formally trained as an artist but insists that daily practice is a better teacher. <\/p>\n

\u201cOnly draw what you are passionate about,\u201d he said he advises prospective young artists. His art is displayed on the walls of his son\u2019s preschool and has been published on the front page of the San Diego Union-Tribune and on the cover of \u201cParents\u201d magazine.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s an honor to have been chosen to be on the Sharpie Squad, but actually I was very proactive about it and I actually contacted them myself to see if I could become part of the squad,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

As a Sharpie Squad member, Benson will be tweeting, blogging and sharing his out-of-the-box creations and ideas on what is possible with a Sharpie marker throughout 2010.<\/p>\n

In return, Sharpie will provide Benson new product news and shipments, virtual meetings with the Sharpie brand team, and publicity through blog posts, Twitter and Facebook.<\/p>\n

To meet the rest of the Sharpie Squad and to check out their latest endeavors, go to sharpieuncapped.com<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Meiko Patton SDUN Reporter Mission Hills resident Derek Benson has been chosen as one of 20 members of the 2010 Sharpie Squad. The squad\u2019s artists and bloggers are a group of passionate Sharpie marker users who serve as vocal brand ambassadors, sharing their enthusiasm, creativity and unbridled passion for Sharpie products. A Namco Games […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1309,"featured_media":243612,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11555","_seopress_titles_title":"Local artist bags recognition for lunch-bag artwork blog","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11549,11551,11555],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-243611","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts-entertainment","category-news","category-uptown-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243611","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1309"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=243611"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243611\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/243612"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=243611"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=243611"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=243611"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}